Recent reports indicate that buildings consume more than 40 percent of the energy used in the United States. As companies pursue environmental stewardship and reduced energy costs, energy efficiency has become an important aspect of modern architectural design. Although a number of improvements have been made to building materials which can decrease a building's overall energy requirement, little progress has been made in developing buildings that are capable of on-site energy generation.
Several past attempts have been made to incorporate wind-powered electrical generation systems into buildings. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,215,039 issued to Zambrano et al. discloses a wind turbine system that exploits an aerodynamically enhanced wind zone of a structure by aligning a plurality of horizontal axis wind turbine generators along a wall. U.S. Pat. No. 6,041,596 issued to Royer discloses an improved building structure that incorporates a tunnel-like opening that is adapted to contain a wind-sensitive generator. U.S. Pat. No. 6,765,309 issued to Tallal, Jr. et al. discloses one or more air intakes that funnel wind into a wind generator mounted internally to the structure. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 7,315,093 issued to Graham, Sr. discloses the use of a cylindrical wind turbine at the edge of a building's rooftop. Despite these previous designs, there continues to be a need for buildings that are capable of generating enough energy through wind to constitute an energy-neutral structure. It is to these and other deficiencies in the prior art that the preferred embodiments of the present invention are directed.